Adverb code-switching among Miami's Haitian Creole–English second generation (2010)

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Adverb code-switching among Miami's Haitian Creole–English secondgeneration

BENJAMIN HEBBLETHWAITE

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition / Volume 13 / Issue 04 / October 2010, pp 409 - 428DOI: 10.1017/S1366728909990563, Published online: 19 March 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728909990563

How to cite this article:BENJAMIN HEBBLETHWAITE (2010). Adverb code-switching among Miami's Haitian Creole–English second generation.Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, pp 409-428 doi:10.1017/S1366728909990563

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Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13 (4), 2010, 409–428 C© Cambridge University Press 2010 doi:10.1017/S1366728909990563 409

Adverb code-switchingamong Miami’sHaitian Creole–Englishsecond generation∗

BENJAMIN HEBBLETHWAITEUniversity of Florida

(Received: November 3, 2008; Revised: September 17, 2009; Accepted: November 14, 2009; First published online 19 March 2010)

The findings for adverbs and adverbial phrases in a naturalistic corpus of Miami Haitian Creole–English code-switchingshow that one language, Haitian Creole, asymmetrically supplies the grammatical frame while the other language, English,asymmetrically supplies mixed lexical categories like adverbs. Traces of code-switching with an English frame and HaitianCreole lexical categories suggest that code-switching is abstractly BIDIRECTIONAL. A quantitative methodology that codesthe language-indexation of the token in addition to the surrounding lexical items was used for all mixed (e.g. xYx/yXy,xYy/yXx, yYx/xXy) and unmixed (xXx/yYy) adverbs. Discourse position, especially the left-periphery, is found to be asignificant factor in adverb code-switching. Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic analyses which acknowledge the ‘low’ statusof one language and the ‘high’ status of the other explain better the frequency of mixed English adverbs in a Haitian Creoleframe and the rarity of mixed Haitian Creole adverbs in an English frame than a minimalist approach, such as MacSwan’s(1999 and subsequent work), which uses phi-feature valuation and entails asymmetry without bidirectionality. While Iprovide confirmation for Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Matrix Language Frame approach, I emphasize that trace bidirectional dataneed to be accounted for by a theory that is grounded in the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic realities.

Keywords: adverbs in Haitian Creole–English code-switching, asymmetry and bidirectionality, Matrix Language Frame comparedwith minimalism, lexical and functional categories in bilingual syntax

1. Introduction

This study of adverb code-switching aims to providenew insights into the nature of adverbs as a syntacticcategory, the processes of language contact, and thetheory of grammar in general. Adverbs and adverbialphrases are examined in mixed and unmixed HaitianCreole–English second-generation grammar by means ofthe naturalistic Miami corpora from the years 2004 (9participants; 34,835 words) and 2005 (12 participants;54,330 words). Naturalistic interviews were exclusivelycollected with second-generation bilinguals in order tofocus on this group and to avoid skewing results byblending generations. The quantification and analysis ofboth mixed AND unmixed Haitian Creole AND Englishadverbs in these corpora is important because it helpsadvance the understanding of this unstudied language pair

* I would like to thank Carmen Silva-Corvalan, Ewa Jaworska, and twoanonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on and correctionsto this article. Their constructive criticism and careful editing greatlyimproved this paper. I would also like to thank Carol Myers-Scottonand Margaret Deuchar for their correspondence, comments andencouragement. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Barbara Vance, JulieAuger, Laurent Dekydtspotter, Kevin Rottet, and Albert Valdman whohelped lay a foundation for this research. All errors are my own.

Address for correspondence:Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Florida, 301 Pugh Hall, PO Box 115565, Gainesville, FL 32611-5565, [email protected]

and code-switching generally by capturing and countingall adverbs uttered. Examples of mixed adverbs fromthe Miami corpus can be found in (1), where the mixedEnglish adverb ANYWAY is surrounded by Haitian Creole,and in example (2), where the mixed Haitian Creole adverbkonnya is surrounded by English:1

(1) yo pa t ap asepte li ANYWAY6P NEG PST ASP V 3P

paske li pa timoun kiC 3P NEG N REL

“they wouldn’t have accepted it anywaybecause she isn’t a child who” (009, 2005)

1 The official “IPN” Haitian Creole spelling has been employedthroughout this article. The following abbreviations are used inexample glosses: 1P = first person singular; 2P = second personsingular; 3P = third person singular; 4P = first person plural; 6P = thirdperson plural; 1POSS = first person possessive; ADJ = adjective; ADV =adverb; ASP = present progressive aspectual marker; AUX = auxiliary;C = complementizer; CONJ = conjunction; COOR = coordinator; D =determiner; DM = discourse marker; EXP = expletive; N = noun,NEG = negation; NUM = number; P = preposition; PL = plural;PST = past tense marker; REL = relative pronoun; V = verb; WH =interrogative. The anonymous participant cited from the corpus islisted by her or his number and year; for example, “(001, 2004)”indicates “speaker 1” from the 2004 corpus. This article focuses upon

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410 Benjamin Hebblethwaite

(2) BUT konnya IT’S vakansADV N

“but now its vacation” (004, 2004)

The following two subsections present the soci-olinguistic and psycholinguistic situation of Haitian-Americans in Miami. Next, current research onmonolingual and bilingual approaches to the syntaxof adverbs is examined. Exemplification of mixedEnglish and Haitian Creole adverbs by means ofthe quantitative methodology is followed by theaggregate quantitative results which compare mixedand unmixed adverbs in Haitian Creole and English.The syntax and discourse positions of adverbs areillustrated and quantified; the left-periphery and right-adjunction are shown to be especially accessiblepositions. Common mixed English adverbs which arepartial homonyms such as just – jis/jous or back –bak are examined separately since they are most likelyborrowings. Lastly, verb and adverb syntactic interactionsin monolingual Haitian Creole and English are comparedwith anomolous examples from code-switching.

In the first place, the analysis of adverbs here providesevidence regarding the theoretical issue of BIDIRECTIONAL-ITY in a context generally characterized by ASYMMETRY. Inthe second place, light is shed upon the split between lex-ical and functional categories. Two related questions areexplored: (i) if adverbs are a category that includes lexicaland functional elements, as Ernst (2002) argues, then, in aMatrix Language Frame approach, the code-switching ofEnglish adverbs in Haitian Creole should be restricted tolexical adverbs and blocked among functional ones; and(ii) if adverbs are Theta-role receiving ‘content’ elements,as Eckardt (1998) argues, then they should be expected inan Matrix Language Frame approach to code-switching.In the third place, examined is the role that the codingof language-indexation has in explaining the continuumbetween code-switching and borrowing. Our hypothesis isthat some English adverbs gradually become borrowings-in-progress as they increasingly occur in strings sur-rounded by Haitian Creole material and are decreasinglyused as switch-points into a co-indexed English string. Ourcoding of the surrounding language-indexation provides ameans to test this quantitatively. In the fourth place, I arguethat sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic pressures impactthe form taken by the two languages in code-switching.

Code-switching is BIDIRECTIONAL even if it appearsto be ASYMMETRICAL (see Hebblethwaite, 2007, 2009b).The appearance of asymmetry in quantitative work is theresult of sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic pressures

the Haitian Creole–English code-switching of the second generationin Miami, Florida. Haitian Creole–English code-switching in thesecond generation in Miami, Florida, is quite distinct from the HaitianCreole spoken in Haiti.

which cause speakers and communities to select the‘low’ language as the primary functional frame for code-switching and not the ‘high’ language. I reject the claimthat morphological feature-valuation (MacSwan, 1999and subsequent work) can be used for predicting theresults of code-switching. Rather, along the lines ofMyers-Scotton (1993, 2002) or Chan (2008), I arguethat the lexical and functional properties of words andthe sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic realities of thecommunity provide a better framework for predictingoutcomes in code-switching.2

1.1 The sociolinguistic situation ofHaitian-Americans in South Florida

The state of Florida, according to the 2000 Census, hasmore than 182,224 Haitian-born residents, and when onetakes into account the second generation, the state is hometo no less than 300,000 persons of Haitian decent (Sohmer,2005). According to the Modern Language Association,Haitian Creole is spoken by 1.78% of Florida’s population,making it the third most widely spoken language inthis state after English (74.54%) and Spanish (18.65%)(http://www.mla.org). Miami-Dade County has one ofthe largest Haitian communities in the U.S. with at least95,669 documented persons (Sohmer, 2005, p. 3). FortLauderdale in Broward County, which is to the immediatenorth of Miami-Dade, is home to more than 62,324Haitian-born residents. The size and density of the Haitianpopulation in south Florida is one of the conditionsunderlying the robust use of code-switching.

The sociolinguistic situation in Miami weighssignificantly on the way Haitian-Americans use HaitianCreole and English. Social and economic data show thatHaitian Creole has a ‘low’ status and English a ‘high’one in Miami. The sociolinguistic situation in Miami’sHaitian community is one characterized by challenges andstruggles that come from a legacy of prejudice. Until 1965,Jim Crow laws banned black Americans from cinemas andrestaurants and sent them to pay taxes at a separate windowat Miami-Dade’s courthouse, among other indignities(Stepick, 1998, p. 38). With this background, the mediaof the 1970s and 1980s transmitted many hysterical

2 For descriptive work on Haitian Creole, among others, the readeris referred to the following authors. For sociolinguistic analyses seeValdman (1988), Dejean (1993), Howe (1993), and Zephir (1997).For grammatical analyses, see DeGraff (1993, 1997, 2007), Valdman(2007), and Harbour (2008). For work on language planning andlanguage ideology see DeGraff (2003, 2005). For Haitian Creolehistorical linguistics see Hebblethwaite (2001). For writing on literacyand Haitian Creole games see Hebblethwaite (2009a). For researchon Haitian Creole genesis see Lefebvre (1998). For phonetics seeJohnson and Alphonse-Ferere (1972) and Hilton (2000). For bilingualor trilingual facing page books which include Haitian Creole, seeHebblethwaite and Pierre (2005, 2009).



Adverb code-switching in Miami Haitian Creole–English 411

reports about the arrival of destitute and unskilled Haitianboat people off the coast of Florida. On top of this, in1982 the Centers for Disease Control issued erroneouswarnings that Haitians were at-risk for tuberculosis andAIDS (Stepick, 1998, p. 35). As a result of these claimsand perceptions, a siege-mentality emerged and Miami’smore comfortably installed communities sometimes sawHaitians as a pariah. Consequently, members of theHaitian community had difficulty finding even minimumwage employment (Stepick, 1992, p. 56).

The quantitative results of Stepick, Stepick, Eugene,Teed & Labissiere’s (2001, p. 241) questionnaires suggestthat Haitian-Americans encounter more racism in publicschools than other groups: Haitians experience it at 70.3%,other Antillean groups at 56.6%, and all other groups at55.1%. The annual median salary in the Haitian-Americancommunity is the lowest of all groups in Miami at$27,287 (non-Hispanic Black follows with $28,617,Cuban with $33,427, Puerto Rican with $34,854,Nicaraguan with $35,059 and non-Hispanic White atthe summit with $49,673; Sohmer, 2005, p. 6). Haitian-Americans also demonstrate more ambivalence towardHaitian Creole than other groups to their respectivelanguages. Portes and Schauffler’s (1994, p. 648) studyin Miami shows that 27.50% of Cubans and 22.10% ofNicaraguans in public schools consider themselves weakin Spanish while 67.80% of Haitians consider themselvesweak in Haitian Creole. At the same time, 32.50% ofCubans and 41.40% of Nicaraguans consider themselvesstrong in Spanish whereas only 11.80% of Haitians con-sider themselves strong in Haitian Creole. These numberssuggest that linguistic assimilation occurs at a rapidpace in all second-generation groups. However, while allgroups express a preference for English, the Haitian sec-ond generation takes less interest in the parental languagethan any other group. To explain this finding, Stepick et al.(2001, p. 239) reveals that first-generation parents copewith a range of problems. Haitian parents lack high-schooldiplomas more than other ethnic groups (60.2% for menand 67.5% for women whereas the average for other ethnicgroups is 36.0% for men and 29.6% for women). Haitianparents are more often unemployed; when employed, itis more often at minimum wage in the service sectorand they are less commonly employed as managers,administrators, or clerks. 81.9% of Haitian parents earnless than $25,000 annually and consequently they lack themeans to pay for their children’s enrollment in universityand they are unwilling to go into debt to pay for it.The lack of parental skills, economic immobility, and anegative reception in the U.S. contribute to the languagestress in the Haitian-American second generation. Thesefactors, among others, explain the ‘cultural dissonance’and indifference to parental emblems like Haitian Creoleand they also explain the asymmetry involving thepreference of Haitian Creole as the frame for code-

switching (see Hebblethwaite, 2006; Stepick et al., 2001,p. 231).

1.2 Psycholinguistic support for asymmetricallyestablished languages

Psycholinguistic research supports the view that manybilinguals have asymmetrically established languages.Meuter (2005, pp. 353–355) shows through calculating“switch cost from the L2 to the dominant L1” that NON-BALANCED BILINGUALS have asymmetrically establishedlanguages. Among her participants, switching from theL2 to the stronger L1 required 143 milliseconds whileswitching from the L1 to the weaker L2 required 85milliseconds, which she calls “an asymmetrical languageswitch cost”. This is due to the greater attention demandsmade by processing the weaker L2. Brain imaging studiessuggest that more brain regions are activated for theL2; additionally, lower proficiency bilinguals require theactivation of more brain regions in the processing oftwo languages (see Dehaene et al., 1997; Perani et al.,1996). Balanced bilinguals were able to decrease theL1/L2 proficiency disparity with practice. Meuter (2005,p. 365) finds that “when speaking the L2, perhaps moreso in an L2 setting, there is a continual need to suppressthe dominant language”. Of course, the issue of whichlanguage is the L1 and which is the L2 is murky in thesecond generation due to the range of acquisition andaffective scenarios (e.g. Does the child speak HaitianCreole AND English at home? Do one or both parentsspeak one or both languages? Do siblings speak English,Haitian Creole or both? Does the bilingual go to an Englishor Haitian Creole daycare setting? Do the L1 and L2 shiftbased on social allegiances and peer and sibling influence?etc.). While there are complex differences in families,it is clear that the PARENTAL language and the SOCIETAL

language are not known or treated in the same ways.Most of the participants in my study display non-balancedknowledge of their two languages and they code-switchasymmetrically.

Grosjean (1997) pointed out that there are manycircumstances in which the bilingual must speak inonly one language because the interlocutor only speaksone language. Practice, upbringing, schools, and thenecessities of interacting in the ‘high’ status languageDICTATE the impermeability of English in the U.S. Verydifferently, second-generation Haitian Creole speakerswithin the Miami Haitian community can employ eitherlanguage; if the speaker selects Haitian Creole, it is usuallycharacterized by code-switching. In production terms,when a Haitian Creole frame is selected, the activation andselectional processes access Haitian Creole AND Englishlexical elements. When an English frame is selected,however, only the English lexicon is accessed while the




Haitian Creole lexicon is closed off due to sociolinguisticand psycholinguistic pressures.

2. Monolingual approaches to adverbs

Monolingual approaches to adverbs provide hypothesesand insights that can be extended to adverbs in bilingualproduction. Adverbs are a diverse and complex group ofelements which modify several syntactic categories suchas adjectives in (3), auxiliary verbs in (4), verbs in (5),adverbs in (6), clauses in (7), and prepositions in (8):

(3) You are extremely kind.

(4) They certainly have arrived.

(5) We run fast.

(6) In fact we run very fast.

(7) Suddenly she found herself in the same situation.

(8) He walks right into the door.

(see Ernst, 2002; Radford, 1997)

Derived from adjectives (slow > slowly) or nouns(love > lovely), adverbs may receive a pronounced ora non-pronounced adverbial affix (e.g. broadly vs. too;Manninen, 2000). As a reviewer noted, the suffix -ly canalso turn a noun into an adjective, e.g. compare She lookedlovely with She is a lovely lady. This fact might provide aclue about the lexical traits of the suffix -ly since adjectivesare a lexical category. Adverbials, which are elementsthat function like adverbs, may also include entire PPs,exemplified in (9) (Ernst, 2002, p. 1).

(9) He typed in a hurry.

Adverbs are adjuncts because they form an expandedcategory of the same type as the one they merge withand because they modify verbs (Radford, 1997, p. 371).Adverbial adjuncts give supplementary information abouta predicate whereas nominal arguments give informationrequired by a predicate (Ernst, 2002, p. 7).

Recent generative work has argued that adverbs are“overt manifestations of functional distinctions similar toparticles, overt morphology and auxiliaries” (Alexiadou,2004, pp. 677–678). Pollock (1989) uses French andEnglish verb placement to suggest that adverbs occupySpecifiers in an expanded functional IP; French verbsmove leftward past adverb-occupied Specifiers to a higherfunctional head. Cinque (2004, pp. 684–685 and hisfootnote 4) argues that adverbs are a functional categorybecause their emergence in first language acquisitionis connected to the functional heads they correspondto. Evidence of their functional status is also found inthe Sino-Tibetan languages Boro and Garo, and in theUto-Aztecan language Chemehuevi, where adverbs aremostly bound morphemes, like other functional elements.

Additionally, Cinque (2004, p. 685) notes that there isa class of adverbs which has morphological expressionthrough a suffix in every language.

Radford (1997, p. 45) takes the semantic properties ofadverbs to be an indication that they are lexical. Cinque(1999, pp. 77–107) also identifies an extensive list ofadverb semantic classes (also see Huang, 1975, p. 13).3

Cinque (1999, 2004) argues that adverbs denote functionalprojections but as a whole he treats them as the intersectionof functional and lexical characteristics. Ernst (2002, p. 9)considers adverbs to have lexical (10a–c) and functional(10d) members:

(10) a. predicational

speaker-oriented: frankly, maybe, luckily,obviously

subject-oriented: deliberately, stupidly

exocomparative: similarly

event-internal: tightly, partially

b. domain: mathematically, chemically

c. participant: on the wall, with a bowl, for his aunt

d. functional

time-related: now, for a minute, still

quantificational: frequently, again, precisely

focusing: even, just, only

negative: not

clausal relations: purpose, causal, concessive,conditional, etc.

Functional adjuncts under (10d) are a heterogeneousgroup, set apart from the others by their non-gradability(e.g. she speaks very/too/extremely quickly versus ∗shespeaks very/too/extremely now) and their quantificationalmeaning (she twice knocked on the door, examplefrom Cinque, 1999, p. 26) (Ernst, 2002, p. 9, 120).Given these predictions, in an approach like the MatrixLanguage Frame, where functional elements are suppliedby the Matrix Language and content elements by theEmbedded Language, one would expect code-switching

3 Some of the adverb semantic classes identified by Cinque(1999) include “evaluative”, “evidential”, “epistemic”, “time”,“irrealis”, “alethic” (e.g. ‘(not) necessarily, possibly’), “subject-oriented”, “habitual”, “repetitive”, “celerative” (e.g. ‘quickly,rapidly’), “anterior”, “terminative”, “continuative”, “retrospective andproximative”, “durative”, “progressive”, “prospective”, “completive”,etc. Classes found in Huang include STATE-OF-MIND (carefully,willingly); MANNER ADVERBS (with a limp, broadly);EVALUATIVE ADVERBS (wisely, clumsily); ADVERBS OFRESULT (legibly, correctly); DURATIVE (for ten minutes);LOCATIVE (here).




to be restricted to the lexical class of adverbs and blockedamong the functional class of adverbs, a matter I turn toahead.

Samuelsdorff (1998, pp. 275–277) argues that there arefunctional adverbs, such as very, and lexical ones, such ascautiously. In some languages the equivalent of very canbe expressed by means of a grammatical suffix, such as-issimo in Italian:

(11) benissimo“very well” (Samuelsdorff, 1998, p. 275, ex. (14))

Adjective-modifying degree ‘adadverbs’ like very andabsolutely have “grading properties” as a class since theyexpress the “extent of a quality or state” (Samuelsdorff,1998, p. 275). Samuelsdorff (1998, p. 275) argues that itis not necessary for an extra entry to exist in the lexiconfor a manner adverb like cautiously if “expression rules”can add -ly to the adjective. Adverbs which are derivedfrom adjectives should not be placed in separate entries inthe mental lexicon since they are generated by derivationalmorphemes. The stem is lexical and the affix is functional,suggesting that adverbs are composite.

Eckardt’s (1998) work on adverbs has implicationsfor code-switching. Eckardt (1998, p. 10) explores theidea that verbs have both nominal AND adverbial thematicor “event” arguments. In the case of adverbs, the eventargument “stands for the action going on, the thingthat happens” (Eckardt, 1998, p. 10). The sentence Tomkissed Sylvia tenderly could be represented as KISS(TOM, SYLVIA, e) & TENDER (TOM, e), wherethere is a two-place relation between the individual andthe event (Eckardt, 1998, p. 10). The event parametercreates “an intermediate level of intentionality restrictedto the verb, but not affected by nominal arguments”(Eckardt, 1998, p. 12). Adverbs are “functors thatmap binary relations between individuals and events”(Eckardt, 1998, p. 12). Verbs and their adverbialevents have a THEMATIC relation, for example, SPATIAL(inside), TEMPORAL (yesterday), BENEFICIENT (forSusan), INSTRUMENTAL (with a knife), VOLITIONAL(shyly/carefully/reluctantly), and so forth (Eckardt, 1998,p. 34).4

To illustrate how adverbs are thematic event argumentsfor verbs, Eckardt (1998, p. 38) explores semanticdifferences that arise when adverbs are added to sentences.The event cooking in (13) ceases to compete with the otherhypothetical causes faced by (12) in the explanation of theneighbor’s calling the police.

(12) Pat was cooking spaghetti, which caused theneighbor to call the police.

(adapted from Eckardt, 1998, p. 65, ex. (17))

4 See Cinque (1999, pp. 77–107) and Huang (1975, p. 15) for morediscussion on adverbial semantic or thematic classes.

(13) Pat was cooking spaghetti late at night, which causedthe neighbor to call the police.

(adapted from Eckardt, 1998, p. 65, ex. (18))

Eckardt (1998, p. 67) shows that the set of relevantalternative worlds is restricted by the presence of theadverb. Adverbs predicate over events and provide athematic focus (Eckardt, 1998, p. 43). Eckardt’s (1998)idea that adverbs are Theta-role receiving event argumentssubcategorized in verbs provides Matrix Language Frameadvocates with an explanation for the frequency ofadverbial code switching and borrowing since the MatrixLanguage Frame model predicts code-switching amongelements which are either Theta Role-Assigning or ThetaRole-Receiving (Myers-Scotton, 1993, pp. 6–7).

Manninen (2000, p. 153) argues that Finnish adverbsare lexical because they are a subclass of adjectives andnouns, not a separate category. Finnish adverbs are noun oradjective stems with an attached “adverb case” morpheme(e.g. -ly, -ment, etc.). In situations where the stem and affixare indistinguishable, Manninen (2000, p. 153) posits anabstract morpheme. Adjectives and adverbs share pre-modifiers like quite, almost, surprisingly, physiologically(ibid., p. 136). Along the lines of Larson (1988), nounsor adjectives become adverbs by means of a Case Phrase(KP) or a PP (Manninen, 2000, pp. 146–148). Attractedby features, the adjective or noun raise to Spec KP orSpec PP and Spec–head agree with K◦/P◦, which is eitherpronounced or covert.

Following Eckardt’s (1998) arguments, I expect adverbcode-switching in a Matrix Language Frame approachsince they are Theta-role receiving ‘content’ elements. Afinal argument for the lexical status of adverbs comes fromthe fact that they are not a closed class such as determinersbut rather a fairly large and expandable one (e.g. there are1,525 adverbs counted in the CD-ROM version of Le PetitRobert, p.c. Julie Auger). The next section turns to workthat focuses on adverbs in code-switching.

2.1 Adverbs in bilingual grammar

With a few exceptions, very little work has been doneon adverbs in bilingual grammar. Treffers-Daller (1994,p. 175) finds 388 mixed French adverbs in her BrusselsDutch–French corpus, noting that they are among the mostcommon mixed categories. With 3,988 French single-word switches in Treffers-Daller (1994, p. 99), syntacticcategories are ranked by frequency: (i) nouns at 58.4%(2,329/3,988); (ii) interjections at 12.4% (496/3,988);(iii) adverbs at 9.7% (388/3,988); (iv) adjectives at9.0% (362/3,988); (v) verbs at 8.9% (353/3,988); (vi)conjunctions at 0.8% (33/3,988); (vii) prepositions at0.1% (4/3,988); (viii) pronouns at 0.02% (1/3,988);(ix) and other elements including numerals, wh-words,quantifiers and particles at 0.5% (21/3,988).




Treffers-Daller’s (1994) work attends to bothDutch–French code-switching and French–Dutch code-switching. As I have done, she identifies all mixedand unmixed structures. She identifies 8,500 unmixedBrussels Dutch adverbs and 0 mixed Dutch adverbs.Oppositely, she identifies 1,788 unmixed French adverbsand 388 mixed French adverbs (Treffers-Daller, 1994,pp. 103–104). She also finds 45 (full constituent) FrenchPP tokens in Dutch (ibid., p. 208). Treffers-Daller’s(1994, pp. 99–104, 205) work shows that linguisticinfluence in Dutch–French is asymmetrical: across allsyntactic categories, 3,988 single-word French switchesoccur in Dutch clauses whereas only 117 Dutch single-word switches occur in French clauses. Social structureis identified as the source of this asymmetrical influencesince “French has been the upper language and BrusselsDutch the lower language for generations of Brusselers”(Treffers-Daller, 1994, p. 106).

Originally, Myers-Scotton (1993, p. 129) classifiedadverbs as “system” or functional morphemes (as opposedto content-morphemes). She argued that adverbs aresystem morphemes that “pick out individuals acrossvariables” (Myers-Scotton, 1993, p. 129). No singlyoccurring Embedded Language (EL) adverbs (i.e., mixedEnglish) are found in her Swahili–English corpus whereas20 “Embedded Language Islands”, which are strings thatinclude more than one word, occur with adverbs as theirleftmost element, for example m-na-jua VERY WELL“you know very well” or ni-ko VERY SURPRISED “I amvery surprised” (e.g. the xYadvy structure in my coding)(Myers-Scotton, 1993, p. 129). However, Myers-Scotton(2002, p. 70) changes her position, now arguing thatadverbs form a category that includes both the systemmembers (such as degree adverbs very, too) and contentmembers. Yoon (1992, p. 438) does not discuss theadverbial tokens he collects from his Korean–Englishcorpus, but, he counts 41 mixed English adverbials, whichamount to 7% of all his switched elements. De Rooij’s(1996) treatment of adverbs in Shaba Swahili–French islimited to a single page and three examples of mixedFrench adverbs.

MacSwan’s (1999) minimalist-inspired approachappeals to morphological mechanisms, especially [+]and [−] feature valuation, as putatively the mostparsimonious method to account for both monolingual andcode-switching modes of speech. Locating grammaticalrequirements in lexical items, he argues that “conflictsin the lexical requirements of words” explain thegrammar of the code-switching clause (MacSwan, 1999,p. 151). Unfortunately, MacSwan (1999) offers only oneparagraph on adverbs in code-switching. The lacuna isattributable to his emphasis on grammaticality judgmentswhen a large corpus is needed to uncover a full rangeof mixed structures. In his modest corpus of 20 minuteshe does find a handful of Spanish adverbs in Nahuatl: ya

“already”, muy “very”, de nuevo “again”, and mas o menos“more or less” (MacSwan, 1999, p. 142). Regarding thescant literature on adverbs in code-switching, MacSwan(1999, p. 142) speculates that as adjuncts they “do notinteract with other elements in any obvious way”. He doesnot state anything else; however, one might surmise, givenhis focus on phi-feature agreement, that he is referringto the absence of morphosyntactic agreement associatedwith adverbs or that there is no constraint on whichlanguage an adverb can occur in.

While MacSwan (1999, etc.) does not analyze mixedadverbs, it is important to attempt to reconstruct how aminimalist approach might be applied to Haitian Creole–English adverb code-switching. MacSwan’s theorypredicts that there are no particular constraints onadverbs because they do not have features to check.Once we are in the domain of an element that hasno particular grammatical constraints on it, one wouldthink that MacSwan is free to appeal, as I do, to theasymmetry of the sociolinguistic and psycholinguisticsituation as the reason for one language being selectedas the functional frame (in both my corpora and his,the ‘low’ language). However, MacSwan (1999, p. 39)explicitly says that “there is little hope that a set ofexplanatory principles can reliably be developed whichpredict when and how people will say what” and “whilesocial motivations for code-switching can be cataloguedand described in interesting ways, theoretical constructs ofgeneral or universal use may be quite beyond our reach”.Given his dismissal of sociolinguistic factors, what posesproblems for his approach is the actual identification andvaluation of adverb features in code-switching. In HaitianCreole and English, for example, adverbs do not contrastmorphosyntactically in any obvious way. Evidence ofbidirectional switching found in the naturalistic datais problematic for a feature valuation approach whichpredicts switching in only one direction; conversely, ifadverb features are congruent, the question then becomeswhy the results are overwhelmingly asymmetrical? Thenext section turns to recent theoretical discussions aboutcode-switching and it explores the implications they havefor adverbs in bilingual production.

2.2 The Null Theory (Chan, 2008) and the 4-M Model(Myers-Scotton, 2002)

Chan’s (2003, 2008) theory on the role of lexical andfunctional categories and his implementation of the “theNull Theory” have interesting implications for adverbsin bilingual production. While Chan’s (2008) work drawsfrom early proponents of the Null Theory (Mahootian,1993; MacSwan, 1999, 2000), his position also marks aclear break from them. The proponents of the Null Theoryhave claimed that it is more economical to rely onlyon those constraints and principles already accepted for




monolingual grammar and they have criticized theorieswhich appeal to constraints and principles specific tocode-switching (i.e., Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002). Chan(2003, 2008, p. 778) argues that the dichotomy betweenlexical and functional categories provides the bestinsight into the grammar of code-switching. Functionalcategories, he argues, inherently determine the position oftheir complements, whether in monolingual or bilingualclauses.

Chan (2008, p. 779) advances that directionalityparameters account for word order in code-switchingbetter than constraints and principles specific to code-switching proposed by proponents of the Matrix LanguageFrame model such as the Morpheme Order Principle,the System Morpheme Principle, and the 4-M Model,among others (see Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002). Thedistinction between lexical categories (N and V) andfunctional categories (D, I and C) provides the simplestbasis for accounting for word order in code-switching(Chan, 2008). Rejecting the claims of MacSwan (1999),Mahootian (1993) and Nishimura (1997), who argue thatthe phi-feature conflict between lexical and functionalheads determines word order and grammaticality in code-switching, Chan (2008, p. 780) takes the position thatit is the functional category, and NOT the lexical one,which determines word order and grammaticality. Theparameter value, for example Verb–Object/Object–Verbor Determiner–Noun/Noun–Determiner, is not linked toSPECIFIC verbs or nouns and it is hence NOT a part of theirlexical subcategorial properties or lemma (Chan, 2008, p.787). The bilingual who, say, speaks both V–OX and O–VY languages will then set the parameter value PRIOR tolexicalizing the verb from either language X or languageY. This view explains cases where a V from languageX with V–O occurs in O–VX word order or a V fromlanguage Y with O–V occurs in VY–O word order (seeChan, 2008, p. 787).

In addition to his arguments on VO/OV, Chan (2008,p. 792) provides examples which show that functionalcategories from EITHER language determine word orderin code-switching (and thus he, like myself, predictsbidirectionality). Nouns and noun complements (e.g. thegenitive) and functional heads and their complements(D–NP, C–IP and P–DP) show that the language ofthe functional projection (D, C or P) determines thesurface position of its lexical complement (NP, IP or DP)regardless of the language of the complement (see Chan,2008, p. 800). Chan (2008, p. 803) argues that sincefunctional categories are closed classes, it is economicalto have “the head–complement order specified in thelexical entries of functional categories”. Chan (2008) doesnot address adverbs; however, as members of a categorythat is open class and shares a thematic relation withverbs, within Chan’s theory adverbs should be expectedin code-switching. Chan (2008) predicts bidirectionality

but he does not explain WHY it occurs simultaneously withasymmetry.

Although the proponents of the Null Theory commonlyclaim that their proposals are more parsimonious thanthe Matrix Language Frame approach, it is not obvioushow Chan (2008) represents such a shift since he alsoclaims, albeit with different TERMINOLOGY, that there isa basic difference between CONTENT (lexical) and SYSTEM

(functional) elements. Likewise, Chan (2008) argues that abilingual clause entails the selection of functional/systemmorphemes (and their subcategorial properties) from ONE

(“Matrix”) language while the lexical/content morphemesfrom either (“Matrix” or “Embedded”) language maybe accessed. In my view, the terms “functional mor-pheme/system morpheme/Matrix Language” and “lexicalmorpheme/content morpheme/Embedded Language” arebasically synonymous.

The 4-M Model developped by Myers-Scotton (2002)and Jake and Myers-Scotton (2009) classifies morphemesinto four types. In this model, one morpheme typeis a content morpheme and the three others aredifferent types of system morphemes, the “Earlysystem morphemes”, “Bridge late system morphemes”,and “Outsider late system morphemes” (Myers-Scotton2002, p. 73). Bridge late system morphemes andOutsider late system morphemes are retrieved at thelevel of the formulator and generally come from theMatrix Language. The Bridge late and Outsider latesystem morphemes primarily build grammatical structureand they are not primarily semantically meaningful.Content and Early system morphemes are conceptually-activated and semantically meaningful (2009, p. 11).Content and Early system morphemes typically involveEmbedded Language elements and they are the onesmost available for code-switching. The morphemes whichare conceptually-activated and meaningful are calledforth by the intentions of speakers (rather than being“structurally-assigned”). The most important split in the4-M Model is therefore between conceptually-activatedmorphemes (content and Early system morphemes)and structurally-assigned morphemes (Bridge and Latesystem morphemes).

Jake and Myers-Scotton (2009) employ the 4-M Model to explain why some syntactic categories,especially prepositions, do not behave uniformly in code-switching. While some EL prepositions are found incode-switching, others are not, and the authors arguethat this is because the category of prepositions includesmembers from the different morpheme types. Noticingthe complexity of prepositions, Chan (2008, p. 802) saysthat “one may conjecture that the traditional distinctionbetween functional and lexical categories is not fineenough . . . there might be two distinctions cross-cuttingvarious categories, namely, closed class/open class wordsand conceptual/featural (or Theta-assigning/non-Theta




assigning) words”. While Chan (2008) rejects the 4-M Model which was introduced to account for finedistinctions, he suggests that the split between functionaland lexical categories may not be adequately explanatory.Chan’s (2008) generalizations are interesting but theydo not fully explain why some Embedded Languageprepositions are code-switches and why others are not;this is where the 4-M Model may provide insights.More quantitative work is needed on different typesof prepositions or adverbs, for example, to see if theydisplay different quantitative behavior in naturalisticdata.

The code-switching in the Miami Haitian Creole–English corpus does not provide evidence that the categoryof adverbs is composed of various morpheme types.The data in my corpora suggest that adverbs form alexical category (though this does not mean that the trendholds cross-linguistically). English adverbs identified asfunctional by Myers-Scotton (1993, 2002) such as thedegree adverb very can also be found in a Haitian Creoleframe. This does not fully negate her idea that degreeadverbs are different than other adverbs; however, itdoes suggest that whatever the differences are, they didnot block their appearance in Miami Haitian Creole–English. The next section examines the quantitativemethodology used to quantify the adverbs in mycorpus.

3. The quantitative methodology exemplified withadverbs

I coded the transcribed corpora using a system whichcodes the language-indexation of the target token inaddition to the tokens to the immediate left and right.This approach has gradually evolved from the workof Myers-Scotton (1993, etc.), Treffers-Daller (1994),and especially Klintborg (1996) and De Rooij (2000).To obtain results that are complete, I coded the entirecorpus including both mixed Haitian Creole and mixedEnglish tokens (in both the 2004 and 2005 corpora),and unmixed Haitian Creole and unmixed English tokens(in only the 2004 corpus). (It is essential therefore toseparate the results of the totally coded 2004 corpusfrom the partially coded 2005 corpus.) Schematically,if English (Eng) is represented by the letter Y andHaitian Creole (HC) is represented by the letter X,this bidirectional coding method produces six mixedtypes and two unmixed types (the lower-case lettersx and y indicate the language indexation of the wordthat precedes or follows the upper-case target tokenY or X):

Mixed English: HC–Eng–HC (xYx) = Type (i)HC–Eng–Eng (xYy) = Type (ii)Eng–Eng–HC (yYx) = Type (iii)

Unmixed English: Eng–Eng–Eng (yYy)Mixed Haitian

Creole: Eng–HC–Eng (yXy) = Type (i)Eng–HC–HC (yXx) = Type (ii)HC–HC–Eng (xXy) = Type (iii)

Unmixed HaitianCreole: HC–HC–HC (xXx)

To illustrate this method, examples of all mixed adverbtypes are provided below.

Mixed English Adverbs5

Type (i) [xYx]: MAYBE

(14) . . . m ka di MAYBE paske m konnen . . .1P AUX V C 1P V

“I can say maybe because I know” (009, 2004)

Type (ii) [xYy]: ANYWAY

(15) i pa on fom franse ANYWAY,3P NEG D N N

WE CALL IT A BROKEN FRENCH“it isn’t a form of French anyway, we call it abroken French” (007, 2004)

Type (iii) [yYx]: MAYBE

(16) . . . m te fe SUPERIOR SOLOIST,1P PST V

UH, MAYBE m kwe de tan.1P V NUM N

“a performance I did superior soloist, uh, maybeI believe two times” (010, 2005)

5 The following examples of mixed English adverbs provide asupplement to those given above. The first example shows HC-Engadv-HC Type (i) [xYx] structure:

(a) YAH, EVEN pi piti tifi yo ki gen MAYBE katran . . .ADJ ADJ N D.PL REL V NUM.N

“Yah, even the youngest little girl who is maybe four years old”(001, 2004)

The HC–Engadv–Eng Type (ii) structure is given in (b):

(b) . . . LIKE, on ti MAYBE TEN PERCENT AFRICAN-D ADJ

AMERICAN.“like, a small maybe ten percent African-American.” (010, 2005)

Lastly, the Eng–Engadv–HC Type (iii) structure is exemplified in (c):

(c) BECAUSE EVEN SOMETIME m konn fache1P AUX V

“because even sometimes I get angry” (001, 2004)




Table 1. Mixed English Adverbs in Haitian Creole (HC) token types.

Mixed English adverbs

in HC token types

2004 corpus:

tokens

2004 corpus:

%

2004 corpus:

% of all mixed &

unmixed compared

2005 corpus:

tokens

2005 corpus:

%

HC–Engadv–HC 54 38.0% 63 50.8%

HC–Engadv–Eng 48 33.8% 48 38.7%

Eng–Engadv–HC 40 28.1% 13 10.4%

Totals 142 100% 12% (142/1,176) 124 100%

Mixed Haitian Creole Adverbs6

Type (i) [yXy]: konnya “now”

(17) . . . BUT konnya IT’S vakans . . .ADV N

“but now its vacation” (004, 2004)

Type (ii) [yXx]: tre “very”

(18) OH VERY, tre tre tre bel bagay, yoADV ADJ N 6P

pli AMERICANIZED . . .ADV

“Oh very, very very very nice things, they aremore Americanized” (003, 2004)

Type (iii) [xXy]: two “too”

(19) . . . pa fe y two LOUD . . .NEG V 3P ADV

“don’t do it too loud” (001, 2004)

6 Here additional examples from the fifteen Haitian Creole adverbtokens are provided; many are the adverb kounyeya “now”, and itsvariants. Example (a) illustrates the Eng–HC–Eng Type (i):

(a) . . . THEY BEEN HERE LIKE IN THE US FOR LIKE konnyaADV

LIKE A YEAR BUT I STILL HAVE TO TRY pale . . .“they been here like in the US for like now like a year but I stillhave to try talk” (001, 2004)

Example (b) illustrates the other HC-HC-Eng Type (iii) identified inthe corpora.

(b) BUT m we konnya I . . . I RECENTLY DISCOVER . . .1P V ADV

“but I see now I . . . I recently discovered romance novels”(004, 2004)

Note that even though konnya in example (b) is at the end of the code-switched phrase, m we konnya “I see now”. Due to the fact that theright-edge of konnya abuts an English phrase, it is coded as mixedbecause there is a change in language. Of course, it is not so muchthe adverb that is code-switched; rather it is the following clause orclause segment that is code-switched. The right edge of the adverb in(b) illustrates an interclausal code-switch (mixed2). Interclausal code-

A supplementary coding system is used in cases wherethe surrounding elements are not representative of thelanguage of the clause as a whole. The supplementarycoding system takes into account the language of theclause Io in order to determine whether the token ismixed1 (not the same language as I◦) or mixed2 (thesame language as I◦). Following a number of authors,I assume that I◦ determines the base or Matrix Languageof the clause (see Klavans, 1985; Prince & Pintzuk, 2000[1983]). The mixed English tokens in (14)–(16) and themixed Haitian Creole tokens in (17)–(19) can be dividedinto these two types.

(20) Mixed1 is a mixed type that is not in the samelanguage as I◦.

(21) Mixed2 is a mixed type that is in the same languageas I◦.

On the basis of these definitions, mixed English adverbsMAYBE in (14)–(16) are mixed1 tokens since HaitianCreole supplies the Io (ka, pa and te, respectively). Themixed Haitian Creole adverb konnya “now” in (17) ismixed1 because the Io of the clause is the English copula.In (18), however, tre “very”, is mixed2 since HaitianCreole’s null copula is the clause’s I◦. Lastly, two in (19)is also mixed2 since it shares the same Haitian Creolelanguage-indexation as the Io of the clause, the negationmarker pa. Clearly the clause is Haitian Creole and theEnglish adjective loud has been inserted. The issue ofdifferentiating mixed1 versus mixed2 will be an importantconsideration further ahead. The next section presents thequantitative results and discusses the findings.

3.1 Results and discussion on adverbs

In Tables 1–4, I give the aggregate quantitative resultsfor all mixed and unmixed adverbs from the MiamiHaitian Creole–English corpora. Due to the relatively

switches are common among mixed Haitian CreoleX elements in yXxor xXy structures. (Other researchers do not discuss code-switchedadverbs perhaps because the ones they have in their corpora are all partof larger structures and are analyzed as such.) These mixed2 tokensfurther reveal how very limited the directionality of Haitian Creolecode-switching in English is.




Table 2. Unmixed English Adverbs (only 2004 corpus).

Unmixed English

adverbs Tokens

% of all mixed &

unmixed compared

Eng–Engadv–Eng 234 19.8% (234/1,176)

Table 3. Mixed Haitian Creole (HC) Adverbs in EnglishToken Types.

Mixed HC

adverbs in English

token types

2004

corpus:

tokens

2004

corpus:

%

2004 corpus:

% of all mixed &

unmixed compared

2005

corpus:

tokens

Eng–HCadv–Eng 6 40.0% 0

Eng–HCadv–HC 7 46.6% 1

HC–HCadv–Eng 2 13.3% 0

Totals 15 100% 1.27% (15/1,176) 1

Table 4. Unmixed Haitian Creole Adverbs (only 2004corpus).

Unmixed HC adverbs Tokens

% of all mixed &

unmixed compared

HC–HCadv–HC 785 66.7% (785/1,176)

small number of mixed adverbs, I focus on the AGGREGATE

results. Given that individual adverbs occur in only a fewtokens or at most under 20 tokens, the aggregate analysisis the best way to obtain a meaningful generalizationabout the surrounding language-indexation. Notice thatthe number 1,176 represents the total number of mixedand unmixed adverb tokens identified in the 2004 corpus.7

Recall that there are three mixed token types and twodirections: therefore, where Y = English and X = HaitianCreole, I find, xYadvx, xYadvy, and yYadvx token typesalongside yXadvy, yXadvx, and xXadvy.8

In the next sections I interpret the above results andexamine what they suggest about the grammar of mixedand unmixed adverbs. Comparing all adverb tokens fromthe 2004 corpus, unmixed Haitian Creole adverbs accountfor 66.7% (795/1,176) of all tokens and unmixed Englishadverbs account for 19.8% (234/1,176). Hence, unmixedadverb structures are preferred in Haitian Creole–Englishfor a combined 86.5%. Mixed English adverbs in HaitianCreole account for 12% (142/1,176), a striking percentage

7 Recall that I only count mixed tokens in the 2005 corpus (and notunmixed ones), making it necessary to keep those results completelyseparate from the aggregate 2004 results. I also wanted to keep resultsseparate in order to examine if the aggregate results would be similaror different and thus establish the reliability of my corpora.

8 Recall that the adverbs just and bak, which are analyzed as unmixedborrowings, are not included in the totals of mixed adverbs.

Table 5. Mixed English group 1 adverbs (few English,many HC).

Mixed English

adverb Tokens

Unmixed HC

equivalent Tokens

also 1 tou 66

always 1 toujou 197

even 4 menm 257

more 4 plis, pi 233

now 3 kounye a 105

only 2 sel, selman 102

very 1 tre 28

compared to mixed Haitian Creole adverbs which are theleast numerous at 1.27% (15/1,176). The commonnessof mixed Haitian Creole adverbs and the rarity, butnot invisibility, of mixed English ones is accountedfor with the notions of asymmetry and bidirectionality.Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic realities ensureasymmetry in Haitian Creole–English. At the same time,traces of code-switching in the opposite direction, thatis English–Haitian Creole, suggest that bidirectionalityexists theoretically and abstractly but is suppressed inlinguistic performance for the reasons given.

In the mixed adverb results, the HC–Engadv–HC tokenType (i) predominates in the 2004 corpus at 38% andin the 2005 corpus at 50.8%. The fact that so manyEnglish adverbs are completely surrounded by HaitianCreole suggests that their inclusion is unproblematic.To assess the borrowing versus code-switching status ofmixed English adverbs in Haitian Creole, occurrences ofHaitian Creole near-equivalents have also been counted.

Four groups of mixed English adverbs can be identified.Group 1 English adverbs in Table 5 occur infrequentlywhile the Haitian Creole equivalents are common. Group 1English adverbs are most likely code-switches. In group 2,the number of English tokens is still small whereas theHaitian Creole equivalent is more limited than the HaitianCreole adverbs in group 1. These mixed English adverbsare possibly borrowings-in-progress; however, the numberof overall tokens is too low for any certainty (see Table 6).In group 3, the mixed English adverb is more commonthan the Haitian Creole equivalent. Group 3 adverbs aremost likely borrowings-in-progress or borrowings (seeTable 7). Finally, group 4 includes mixed English adverbsthat scarcely occur and whose Haitian Creole equivalentis rare or non-existent. Results are given in Table 8.

Given the predictions of the Matrix Language Framewhere functional elements are supplied by the MatrixLanguage and content elements by the EmbeddedLanguage, one would expect code-switching to berestricted to the so-called lexical class of adverbs andblocked among the so-called functional class of adverbs.




Table 6. Mixed English group 2 adverbs (fewEnglish, few HC).

Mixed English

adverb Tokens

Unmixed HC

equivalent Tokens

anywhere 1 nenpot kote 2

even though 4 menm si 6

everytime 1 chak fwa 7

kind of 3 on ti jan 6

normally 1 nomalman 4

late 1 ta 5

Table 7. Mixed English group 3 adverbs (moreEnglish, less HC).

Mixed English

adverb Tokens

Unmixed HC

equivalent Tokens

anyway 5 antouka 1

especially 7 espesyalman 1

maybe 18 petet 5

of course 3 natirelman 0

probably 5 pwobableman 0

neither 3 ni 0

Table 8. Mixed English group 4 adverbs (fewEnglish, few HC).

Mixed English

adverb Tokens

Unmixed HC

equivalent Tokens

at least 1 omwen 0

definitely 1 definitivman 0

each month 1 chak mwa 1

mainly 1 prensipalman 0

most of the time 1 plis fwa 1

quiet 1 trankilman 0

unless 1 sof 0

However, this pattern was not found; for example, amongtime-related adverbs, identified as functional by Ernst(2002), now was attested in the speech of two speakersin three tokens, for right now (similar to his for a minute)occurred in one token, and still was attested amongfour speakers and in nine tokens. Among quantificationaladverbs, exactly (similar to Ernst’s precisely) occurredin one token. Among focusing adverbs, even was foundin two speakers and four tokens; just, although excludeddue to convergence with the Haitian Creole cognate jis,occurred abundantly; and only occurred in one token.Among negative adverbs, not yet was found in twospeakers and two tokens. Various adverbs which are

classified as functional by Ernst (2002) appeared, counterto expectations, in my code-switching corpus. Therefore,based on my corpus, I take the position that adverbs behavelike a lexical category and not one that includes lexicaland functional members.

3.2 Mixed adverbs in Miami Haitian Creole–English

Table 9 provides a list of all the mixed English adverbsand adverb phrases found in the Miami Haitian Creolecorpora. The list indicates the distribution and frequencyof each element in order to provide a basis for evaluatingthe items as borrowings, code-switches or some mixture ofboth. In addition, the occurrences of the nearest HaitianCreole equivalent are counted as a means of assessingthe code-switching versus borrowing status of the mixedEnglish adverb.

This complete listing shows that the majority of mixedadverbs in the corpus occur only once, suggesting thatthey are most likely code-switches. Adverbs with higherrates of occurrence like sometime(s) and still are possiblyborrowings-in-progress, a topic taken up in the nextsection.

3.3 Frequent mixed English adverbs in Haitian Creole

In Table 10, I provide the most frequent mixed Englishadverbs. The total number of tokens for any given adverbrarely rises above 10. Adverbs with several tokens showthe range of surrounding language-indexation token types.

The surrounding language-indexation results given inTable 10 provide a few insights into mixed adverbs andthe continuum that links code-switching, borrowing-in-progress and integrated borrowing (also see Treffers-Daller, 2005, p. 500). The mixed English adverbs(e)specially, maybe, still and then are perhaps borrowings-in-progress given that these tokens are most oftensurrounded by Haitian Creole (i.e. the high proportion ofthe HC–Eng–HC types). I call these items ‘borrowings-in-progress’ rather than ‘borrowings’ because they allinclude tokens with adjacent English (e.g. HC–Eng–Eng or Eng–Eng–HC). English adverbs like anyway,even, more and probably, which are often adjacent toother English elements, are more weighted toward code-switching (rather than borrowing) given that they sharelanguage-indexation on at least one side in MOST of thetoken types (e.g. HC–Eng–Eng or Eng–Eng–HC). Thusthe English adverbs with adjacent English show that theseadverbs are in between fully integrated borrowings andcode-switches. The next section examines the role thatdiscourse position has in code-switching.

3.4 English adverb syntax in Haitian Creole–Englishcode-switching and the role of discourse position

Adverbs modify a variety of syntactic categories andoccur in different syntactic domains. There are at least




Table 9. List of all mixed English adverbs found inHaitian Creole (HC) clauses.

Mixed English

adverb

Number

of users

Total

tokens HC equivalents

actually 1 1 15 (vreman)

ago, e.g. (two) years

ago

2 2 NA (e.g. gen)

also 1 1 66 (tou)

always 1 1 197 (toujou)

anything 1 1 2 (nenpot bagay)

anyway 3 5 1 (antouka)

anywhere 1 1 2 (nenpot kote)

as a group 1 1 0 (kom yon

gwoup)

at least 1 1 0 (omwen(s))

at the same time 1 1 7 (an menm tan)

automatically 2 2 0 (otomatikman)

basically 2 2 0 (efektivman)

definitely 1 1 0 (setenman)

each year 1 1 5 (chak ane)

each month 1 1 1 (chak mwa)

early 1 1 0 (bone)

either 2 2 9 (swa); 0 (kit)

especially 6 7 1 (espesyalman)

even 2 4 257 (menm)

even though/even do 2 4 6 (menm si)

everyday 1 4 19 (chak jou)

everytime 1 1 7 (chak fwa)

exactly 1 1 3 (egzakteman)

far 1 1 8 (lwen)

final 1 1 2 (anfen)

finally 2 2 0 (finalman)

first 2 2 1 (premye)

first of all 1 1 2 (premyeman)

for right now 1 1 0 (pou kounye a)

hard 1 1 16 (difisil)

here n’ there 1 1 0 (pasi pala)

honestly 1 1 0 (onetman)

hundred percent of

the time

1 1 None

in my opinion 1 1 1 (opinyon pa m)

0 (dapre m)

kind of/kinda 2 3 6 (on ti jan)

last time 1 1 3 (denye fwa)

late 1 1 5 (ta)

last year 2 2 3 (ane pase)

later 1 1 3 (pi ta)

loud 1 1 1 (fo)

Table 9. Continued.

mainly 1 1 0

(prensipalman)

maybe 8 18 5 (petet)

more 3 4 82 (plis); 151

(pi)

mostly 2 2 12 (pi fo)

most of the time 1 1 1 (plis fwa)

neither 3 2 0 (ni)

normally 1 1 4 (nomalman)

now 2 3 105 (kounye a;

kounyeya)

now that 1 1 None

not yet 2 2 32 (poko)

often 1 1 7 (souvan)

of course 3 3 0 (byen si;

natirelman)

once 1 1 14 (on fwa)

only 1 1 35 (selman);

67 (sel)

not only 1 1 0 (nonselman)

over an’ over . . . 1 1 0 (fwa apre fwa)

as well 1 1 24 (menm jan)

piece by piece 1 1 1 (moso moso)

probably/probly 5 5 0

(pwobableman)

pretty much 1 1 0 (apepre)

quiet 1 1 0 (trankilman)

Wednesdays 1 1 0 (mekredi yo)

wrong 1 1 0 (fo)

really 2 2 12 (vreman)

right 2 2 0 (direk)

sometimes/sometime 3 11 4 (tanzantan)

so much that 1 1 0 (otan)

specially 2 2 See especially

still 4 9 197 (toujou)

that much 3 1 52 (telman)

then 3 6 13 (le sa)

though 1 1 None

together 2 2 0 (ansanm)

too 1 1 66 (tou)

too often 1 1 112 (two(p))

too quiet 1 1 See too often

too loud 1 1 See too often

unfortunately 1 1 0 (malerezman)

unless 1 1 0 (sof)

usually 2 3 4 (nomalman)

very 1 1 28 (tre)




Table 10. The most frequent mixed English adverbs and token types.

Adverb HC–Adv–HC HC–Adv–Eng Eng–Adv–Eng

Total

tokens

Number of

speakers using

the adverb

anyway 2 3 0 5 3

(e)specially 6 2 2 10 6

even 2 0 2 4 2

maybe 11 5 2 18 8

more 0 3 1 4 3

probably 2 0 4 6 5

sometime(s) 5 4 2 11 3

still 8 0 1 9 4

then 5 0 3 8 3

Total 41 17 17 75 –

four sentential domains in Miami Haitian Creole–Englishcode-switching; (a) and (d) are peripheral and (b) and (c)occur in the midst of argument structure.

(a) Left-periphery-adverb in CP

(b) IP-adverb

(c) VP-adverb

(d) Right-adjoined (e.g. phrase-final) modifying IP, VP,or CP

Example (22) below illustrates type (a) left-periphery-adverbs that occur higher than the subject in Spec IP.The majority of mixed English adverbs occur in thisdiscourse-prominent position – 54% (n 68/124) in the2004 corpus and 52% (n 41/78) in the 2005 corpus.9 Asone reviewer suggested, this points to the accessibilityof the left-periphery syntactic domain and its discourse-prominence.

(22) Yo te ede mwen; NOW m ap ede yo.6P PST V 1P 1P ASP V 6P

“They helped me, now I’m helping them.”(001, 2005)

Example (23) shows the type (b) IP-adverb that occursafter the subject pronoun but before the finite verb bezwen“need”. This position is less accessible since mixedEnglish adverbs only target the position at 9.6% (n 12/124)in the 2004 corpus and 8.9% (n 7/78) in the 2005 corpus.

9 The total number of adverbs counted differs slightly from the numbersgiven in Table 1 because I excluded English adverbs in ambiguousutterances.

(23) . . . ou konnen ou FIRST bezwen we pou2P V 2P AUX V P

pe fe y . . .AUX V 3P

“you know you first need to see in order to be ableto do it” (001, 2005)

The example in (24) illustrates the type (c) mixedEnglish VP-adverb in Haitian Creole–English. Once againmixed English adverbs targeting this position are few innumber with only 9.6% (n 12/124) in the 2004 corpus and10.2% (n 8/78) in the 2005 corpus.

(24) M pa REALLY konnen sa m vle fe.1P NEG V WH 1P AUX V

“I really don’t know what I want to do.”(001, 2004)

The final example, in (25), illustrates a type (d) right-adjoined, clause-final adverb. The verb mache “to walk”,takes the adjunct PP avek ayisyen “with Haitians”. Infinal position, the adverb unfortunately modifies the clausefrom a hierarchically superior X-bar position (above IP orCP, as the case may be). Mixed English adverbs targetingthis position are higher in number with 25% (n 32/124) inthe 2004 corpus and 23% (n 18/78) in the 2005 corpus.The higher number of mixed tokens targeting this positionsuggests that it is also discourse-prominent like type (a).

(25) . . . yo p ap janm mache avek ayisyen6P NEG ASP ADV V P N

UNFORTUNATELY.“they are never going to walk with Haitiansunfortunately.” (003, 2004)

Mixed English adverbs are most frequently usedin discourse-prominent syntactic positions. Syntactic




positions which are peripheral to argument structure(i.e., subjects, objects and verbs) are the most accessiblein adverb code-switching. The left-periphery is themost accessible of all, a matter I attend to in the nextsection.

3.5 Adverbs and left-peripheral elements

As shown above, mixed English adverbs target the left-periphery in the majority of tokens. Indeed, adverbsshare affinities with other left-peripheral elements likediscourse markers, conjunctions, complementizers, wh-words, and coordinators. All the categories which targetextended CP can serve as left-periphery boundaries forcode-switching or can be combined into a left-peripherychunk. Torres (2002) and Hebblethwaite (2007) show thatthe left-periphery serves as one of the most active syntacticdomains for code-switching. In addition to [CPX [CPY]]and [CPY [CPX]], the structures [CPX [IPY]] and [CPY

[IPX]] are very common.Example (26) shows a long chunk of left-periphery

elements, e.g. discourse markers so and well, theconjunction but, and the adverbial then.

(26) . . . ki jan yo santi yo SO, WELL, BUT THENWH 6P V 6P

le m le trant m pa konn . . .WH 1P WH N 1P NEG V

“how they feel about themselves so, well, but thenwhen I’m thirty I don’t know . . . ” (005, 2005)

Of course, as illustrated by the English adverb USUALLYin (27), sometimes mixed English adverbs target the left-periphery as lone elements:

(27) . . . men USUALLY lo ou pale LIKE serye . . .CONJ WH 3P V ADV

“but usually when you speak like seriously”(003, 2004)

The temporal adverbial wh-word when is equivalentto Haitian Creole’s le and kou. This HC–when–HCsequence is the only mixed token of lone when in thecorpora:

(28) . . . GOVERNMENT ameriken, kou . . . WHENADJ WH

yo mete UNIFORM . . .6P V

“American government, when . . . when they put onuniforms” (008, 2005)

In example (29), when marks an intersentential code-switch into English:

(29) . . . le fini . . . avek WHEN IT COMES TO TIME,DM P

ayisyen pi mal . . .N ADV ADJ

“so . . . and when it comes to time, Haitians are theworst” (003, 2004)

Coordinators like and and ak are also left-peripheralelements as they occupy extended Coordinator Phrases(along the lines of Rizzi, 1997). One frequently findsthe adverb then occurring in the chunk, “and then”, asillustrated in (30):

(30) . . . pou . . . ranje poblem yo AN’ THENP V N D.PL

yo di ou OKAY . . .6P V 2P

“to fix the problems and then they tell you okay”(006, 2005)

The left-periphery serves as an ideal positionfor code-switching due to its discourse-prominence.Situated outside of the argument structure, the domainis seamlessly populated by mixed tokens. As a sitewhich transitions to and from argument structures andestablishes illocutionary force, the left-periphery provesto be the most accessible platform for code-switching.

3.6 English adverb borrowings orborrowings-in-progress in Miami Haitian Creole

There is a small group of common English adverbsin Miami Haitian Creole that is likely comprised ofborrowings or borrowings-in-progress rather than code-switches. The elements discussed in this section (justand bak) are not included in the count of mixed Englishadverbs because they are possibly borrowings and becausethey overlap with Haitian Creole partial homonyms.

JustThe adverb just is very frequent in Miami Haitian Creoleand other languages in contact with English, such asOntarian French (Rehner & Mougeon, 1997). It is acognate of the Haitian Creole adverb jis/jous “just”and French juste. Twenty-six tokens of the HC–just–HCsequence occur in the speech of several participants:

(31) . . . gen lot anko ki JUST pa CARE . . .EXP N ADV REL NEG

“there are others still who just don’t care”(009, 2004)

There are ten tokens of the HC–just–Eng sequence andeight tokens of Eng–just–HC. Each sequence is illustratedin (32) and (33), respectively. English just in (31) aboveis likely a borrowing-in-progress that is already closely




related to jis/jous. At the same time, just is linked to code-switching, as can be seen in (32) and (33).

(32) . . . yo JUST FOUND mwen on travay6P 1P D N

TEMPORARY“they just found me a temporary job” (001, 2004)

(33) IT’S JUST nou renmen lang SO MUCH THAT4P V N

nou kontinye li.4P V 3P

“It’s just we love the language so much that wecontinue it.” (011, 2004)

There are several similarities between Ontarian Frenchand Miami Haitian Creole with respect to this adverb. Inboth contact varieties just frequently undergoes consonantcluster simplification st > s (Rehner & Mougeon, 1997,p. 95). Rehner and Mougeon (1997, p. 102) speculatethat the increase of juste in these French-weak Ontariancommunities is “promoted by a process of Englishlanguage convergence”. Miami Haitian Creole is alsosubject to such convergence between Haitian Creole’sjis/jous/jus and English’s just/jus, which is why I keepsuch items apart from the count of code-switches.

BakThe English adverb back has long been borrowed intothe Haitian Creole spoken in Haiti. It is possible thatback entered the language during the US occupation ofHaiti (1915–1934) and it is found in all late 20th-centurypublications. Examples of common expressions includefe bak “go back”; mennen bak “to watch one’s step, towatch over, to be careful” in se lide ki bon pou mennenbak peyi a “this is the leader who is good for watchingover the country”; and pa bak “backwards” in mache pabak “to walk backwards”. In pa bak notice that bak formsthe adverb “backwards” with the help of the prepositionpa. Bak produces combinations with Haitian Creole verbsthat have no English equivalent, e.g. ∗make/do back. Asone reviewer noted, the fact that bak can be used to createstructures and phrases that do not exist in English showsthat it is not only borrowed in Haitian Creole but hasstarted leading a life of its own.

Back is borrowed in other communities where thereis intense contact with English. For example, back isborrowed as baka in Sranan (Blanker & Dubbeldam,2005) and it is also attested in certain Acadian varieties,notably Chiac, a French–English contact language spokenin Moncton, New Brunswick (Perrot, 2005, p. 314;Tremblay, 2005, p. 263). Bak has even greater extensionin Miami Haitian Creole–English due to intense contactwith English back. In Miami Haitian Creole back closelyresembles equivalent English phrasal verb constructions

in common locutions, such as pale back – speak back,in (34):

(34) . . . m ka pale BACK nan kreyol.1P AUX V P Creole

“I can speak back in Creole.”10 (001, 2004)

Tokens of bak are counted as unmixed elements becausebak is already established in the Haitian Creole spoken inHaiti and thus facilitates an increase in the use of backand complicates identifying back as a borrowing or code-switch.

3.7 Haitian Creole verb/adverb interactions and ananomaly in Haitian Creole–English

As shown in (37) and (38), Haitian Creole clause-internalelements like adverbs and negation cannot intervenebetween the verb and direct object:

(35) Bouki deja konnen Boukinet.Bouki already know Boukinet“Bouki already knows Boukinet.”

(36) Bouki pa konnen Boukinet.Bouki NEG know Boukinet“Bouki doesn’t know Boukinet.”

(37) ∗Bouki konnen deja Boukinet.(38) ∗Bouki konnen pa Boukinet.

(from DeGraff, 2005, p. 301, exx. (3)–(4))

Verbs typically remain in-situ in Haitian Creole, whichmeans that they cannot raise past the adverb or negation,as the ungrammatical sentences in (37) and (38) show.

Although participant (001, 2004) is an outlier whois not representative of the sample, examples (39)–(40)show that in her idiolect, the Haitian Creole verb mayoccur higher than the English adverb. The adverb occursbetween the verb and the direct object, in contrast to thecanonical position (see DeGraff, 2005, 2007). Examples(39)–(40) show that this position is productive in this

10 Additional examples of phrasal verb constructions with back inMiami Haitian Creole include the following:

(a) . . . AN’ THEN le yo vin BACK BECAUSE on bagay . . .WH 6P V D N

“an’ then when they come back because a thing”(002, 2005)

(b) . . . yo al BACK pou on lot moun . . .6P V P D ADJ N

“they went back for another person” (011, 2004)

(c) . . . nou di li BACK an kreyol AN’ THAT WAS IT.4P V 3P P N

“we say it back in Creole and that was it.” (009, 2005)

(d) . . . m di l nan angle a epi m retounen BACK1P V 3P P N D COOR 1P V

nan kreyol la.P N D

“I say it in English and I return back into Creole.” (011, 2004)




speaker’s code-switching and they suggest that the partic-ipant has activated parametric syntactic values that are nottypically associated with the verbs and adverbs involved.

(39) . . . ye m konn gade SOMETIMEWH 1P AUX V

on MOVIE OR A SHOW . . .D

“when I used to sometimes watch a movie or ashow” (001, 2004)

(40) . . . m we SOMETIME PARENT yo . . .1P V D.PL

“I sometimes see the parents” (001, 2004)

Examples (39)–(40) violate Haitian Creole and Englishword-order rules because neither allows adverbs of thistype to intervene between the verb and the direct object;rather both languages require them either BEFORE the verbor AFTER the direct object. Note, however, that in sentenceslike (a), She quickly purchases the television, and (b),She purchases quickly the television, sentence (b) is lessdegraded than the monolingual English equivalents of(39)–(40). Could participant (001, 2004) be tapping into amarginal syntactic position and extending its availabilityto other adverbs? Outliers like participant (001, 2004)might provide clues about available parametric settings inUniversal Grammar and grammatical change in innovativeindividuals.

The in-situ analysis of unmixed Haitian Creole verbsdoes not consistently hold since participant (001, 2004)displays occasional short verb-movement to the head ofthe light verb past the adverb adjoined to Spec VP. Shortverb-movement in Haitian Creole could be the resultof English or Haitian Creole influences if single-placepredicates such as (a) She ran quickly into the shop, (b)She walked slowly down the street, or (c) Li devlope rapidnan lekol la “She developed quickly in the school”, etc.,serve as syntactic models for new parametric realizationsin Haitian Creole–English in spite of restrictions on two-place predicates in the standard languages, e.g. ∗Shewalked slowly the dog or ∗Li devlope rapid yon plan “∗Shedeveloped rapidly a plan”. These anomalies may suggestthat word order is more receptive to change than otheraspects of the grammar.

3.8 Either and neither

Polarity adverbs like either and neither provide interestingclues about language contact. Polarity adverbs are boundby a negation operator higher in the IP functional domain.The adverbs either and neither are co-indexed with pain (42), (44) and (45), and with or in (43). The mixednegation structure can be represented as in (41).

(41) [IP . . . {Haitian Creole}M pa [VP [V HC we . . . ]] {English}(N)EITHER]1P NEG V

“I don’t see either.”

In (42) the structure pa . . . EITHER forms a bilingualpolarity structure. In the EITHER . . . OR polaritystructure in (43), observe that the argument structureintervenes.

(42) M pa kwe nou gen sa nan kreyol EITHER.

1P NEG V 4P V 3P P N

“I don’t believe we have that in Creole either.”

(011, 2004)

(43) I di . . . EITHER ou fe

3P V 2P V

on SECOND LANGUAGE OR . . .

D

“He says . . . either you do a second language or”

(010, 2005)

The English negative polarity adverb neither occurs ina double negation pattern in which Haitian Creole suppliesthe higher I◦ negation operator and English supplies thelower associate lexical adverb:

(44) m pa janm we sa nan fanmi m NEITHER.

1P NEG ADV V 3P P N 1POSS

“I never see that in my family neither.” (009, 2004)

(45) mwen te avek de ayisyen BUT yo pa pale

1P PST P NUM N 6P NEG V

kreyol NEITHER.

N

“I was with two Haitians but they didn’t speak Creole

either.” (002, 2005)

These data suggest that the morphosyntacticrequirements of Haitian Creole negative polaritystructures are satisfied regardless of whether the lowerassociate lexical adverb belongs to the same languageor to a different language. In the examples (42), (44)and (45), the Haitian Creole functional negation element,pa, c-commands the lower English lexical adverb, asshown structurally in (41) above, without regard toits language-indexation, suggesting that English adverbsare perfectly felicitous in structures where they directlydepend on Haitian Creole functional heads. Example (43)illustrates the English either . . . or polarity structure,which involves no negation and is selected by the HaitianCreole predicates, di “say” and fe “do”.

4. Conclusion on adverbs in Miami HaitianCreole–English code-switching

I have examined current discussions on adverbs andexplored the theoretical challenges presented by mixedEnglish and Haitian Creole adverbs using my quantitativecorpus methodology. In his mono-linguistic approachto adverbs, Cinque (2004, p. 685) says that they are“intrinsically functional” and linked to specific functional




projections, while he also says (Cinque 1999) that theyfit into a range of semantic classes, suggesting lexicalproperties. Ernst (2002) argues that adverbs include bothlexical and functional types while Eckardt (1998) andManninen (2000) argue that most adverbs are lexical, andthey develop theories that explore the links that adverbshave with predicates, thematic roles, and derivation.

The qualitative and quantitative evidence in MiamiHaitian Creole–English code-switching suggests thatadverbs behave like members of a lexical category. Indeed,adverbs need to be examined in many more languagepairs in order to discover whether they display differencesand functional traits in other corpora. If adverbs ofdifferent types display different quantitative behavior, amore refined model of morphemes will be needed alongthe lines of Myers-Scotton (2002) or Jake and Myers-Scotton (2009).

Ernst’s (2002, p. 9) typology separates lexical adverbsfrom functional ones. However, as I noted earlier, almostall of the ones identified as functional are used ascode-switches in Miami Haitian Creole–English. Myers-Scotton (2002, p. 70) has suggested that degree adverbs,very and too, are functional; however, these and othersflagged as functional are also attested in my corpus.There are scarcely any adverbs which have been identifiedas functional that are truly blocked from occurring inMiami Haitian Creole–English code-switching. Someadverbs which have been called functional are evenflourishing in my corpus, e.g. still. Of course, onemust recall that the overall number of tokens is limitedand the singleton tokens for very and too might infact indicate inaccessibility; however, many of theadverbs identified as lexical also occur at equally lowrates.

There are additional reasons to think that adverbsgenerally act like members of a lexical category. As wehave seen, Mixed English adverbs constitute 12% of alladverbs in the Miami corpus. Mixed English verbs, fortheir part, constitute 4.5% of all verbs. Mixed Englishbare nominals constitute 6.3% and mixed DPs (i.e., HCD + Eng NP) are 4.8%, forming a total of 11.1% of allDP/NPs (see Hebblethwaite, 2007). Given that adverbscode-switch at a higher percentage than categories likenouns and verbs, which are widely regarded as lexical,it appears that any functional trait that they may haveimposes no restrictions on their availability. The reviewersexpressed surprise at this finding since nouns and verbs aretypically thought of as the most code-switched categories.Indeed, while French nouns in Brussels Dutch constitute58.4% (n = 2,329) of all code-switches in Treffers-Daller (1994, p. 99), adverbs are nevertheless the THIRD

most commonly switched category with 9.7% (n = 388).In Yoon (1992, p. 438), adverbs amount to 7% of allswitched categories. Therefore the findings for adverbsin other corpora are not entirely different from myown.

Beside Klintborg (1996) and De Rooij (2000),most work on code-switching lacks the systematicand bidirectional analysis of the surrounding language-indexation of mixed tokens. In the 2004 corpus 38%(54/142) and in the 2005 corpus 50.8% (63/124) ofmixed English adverbs occurred as lone (xYx) elements,suggesting that English adverbs, as an aggregate class,insert easily into Haitian Creole and that some evenbecome borrowings-in-progress (longitudinal work isneeded to measure this). Moreover, English FOLLOWS

(xYy) in 33.8% (48/142) [2004 corpus] and 38.7%(48/124) [2005 corpus] or PRECEDES (yYx) in 28.1%(40/142) [2004] and 10.4% (13/124) [2005] for acombined average of 56% (149/266), which suggeststhat adverbs are closely linked to language-switchingor occur commonly in chunks with other language co-indexed elements, especially discourse markers. In termsof syntactic structure, my examination of adverbs showsthat they most commonly target discourse-prominentpositions in, first, the left-periphery and, second, aright-adjunction position whereas they are more rarein the IP- or VP-internal positions. This suggests theaccessibility of the peripheries outside of argumentstructure.

Because of the data in the Miami corpora, thedata from Brussels in Treffers-Daller (1994), and muchrecent work, we have discarded, as does Myers-Scotton(2002), the analysis in which adverbs are strictly system(= functional) morphemes ill-suited to code-switching(Myers-Scotton, 1993). Eckardt’s (1998) thematic adverbsubcategorial feature in verbs is just one of several lexicalexplanations that help account for the presence of mixedadverbs in code-switching corpora and make it possible topredict their occurrence in Myers-Scotton’s (1993) MatrixLanguage Frame model. Future work should compareadverbs with derivational morphology (e.g. quickly) andthose without it (e.g. too, also) across various pairs oflanguages to discover differences linked to adverbialsuffixation.

In the 2004 corpus, only 15 mixed Haitian Creoleadverb tokens are found in English sentences, amountingto 1.27% (15/1,176) of ALL 2004 adverb tokens, whichis equivalent to 9.5% (15/157) of all mixed adverbtokens. This is evidence that mixed English adverbs,at 90.5%, are far preferred over mixed Haitian Creoleones. At the same time, the Haitian Creole adverbialconstructions that WERE found in English utterancesprovide evidence of the potential for code switching in theopposite direction, what I call BIDIRECTIONALITY. The lownumber of such code-switches shows the limited access ofmixed Haitian Creole adverbs in Miami’s sociolinguisticand psycholinguistic context, where languages have a‘high’ or a ‘low’ social status. The asymmetry betweenthe sociolinguistic and the psycholinguistic ROLES ofthe languages in Miami accounts for the asymmetry inwhich it is common to find mixed English adverbs in




Table 11. ‘High’ language status/‘low’ language status.

‘Low’ status (the

Matrix Language)

‘High’ status (the

Embedded Language) Country Sources

Nahuatl Spanish Mexico MacSwan (1999)

Spanish English United States MacSwan (2005),

Jake et al. (2005)

Haitian Creole English United States Hebblethwaite (2006,

2007, 2009b)

Turkish Dutch Netherlands Myers-Scotton (1993)

Alsatian French France Myers-Scotton (1993)

Swahili English Tanzania Myers-Scotton (1993)

a Haitian Creole frame but rare to find mixed HaitianCreole ones in an English frame. Reversed sociolinguisticconditions (in another world), would theoretically giveHaitian Creole adverbial switching into an English framethe asymmetrical advantage. The result of asymmetrydoes not discount the potential for bidirectionality, itmerely disguises it.

It is not a conflict of grammatical features that causesasymmetry, it is instead the prevailing sociolinguistic andpsycholinguistic conditions where English has a ‘high’status and Haitian Creole has a ‘low’ status. The ‘low’social status of Miami Haitian Creole gives it a privilegedrole as the functional Matrix Language whereas the ‘high’status of English places limits on its availability as aMatrix Language, on the one hand, while making itthe ideal reservoir of lexical elements to supply HaitianCreole-framed code-switching, on the other. An approachlike MacSwan’s (1999), where language-indexationis unexamined, sociolinguistic and psycholinguisticconditions are inadmissible, and morphology (the strengthof phi-features) is supposed to account for mixedgrammar, the issues of bidirectionality, the lop-sidednessof the results (9.5% mixed Haitian Creole adverbs versus90.5% mixed English adverbs), and the absence of a plainmorphological basis for adverb behavior present seriousproblems.

The sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic situation isreflected in the quantitative findings which show apreference for code-switching with an Haitian Creolefunctional frame. The few cases of English–HaitianCreole code-switches provide evidence that code-switching is not absolutely banned in the other direction;it is only disfavored in that direction. MacSwan’s (1999,etc.) minimalist approach is missing an explanationfor bidirectional data which occur in the context ofasymmetry. Table 11 shows that the ‘high’ or ‘low’social status of the two languages predicts which one willasymmetrically serve as the Matrix Language.

Treffers-Daller (1994) and Hebblethwaite (2007,2009b) argue that the asymmetry between Matrix

Language and Embedded Language morphemes mirrorssociolinguistic and psycholinguistic pressures. English isnot banned as a frame since traces of bidirectionalitycan be detected. These traces of bidirectionality supportthe idea that results with the opposite asymmetry aretheoretically possible under opposite sociolinguistic andpsycholinguistic conditions.

Mixed English adverbs in Haitian Creole show a rangeof borrowings (just, back), borrowings-in-progress (espe-cially, still, maybe, sometimes, etc.), and code-switches(unfortunately). De Rooij (2000), Klintborg (1996) andTorres (2002) argue that borrowing and switching are notmutually exclusive processes. There is a continuum inwhich items enter a language as code-switches and maybecome borrowings-in-progress over time. Some Englishadverbs gradually become borrowings-in-progress as theyincreasingly occur in strings surrounded by Haitian Creolematerial and are decreasingly used as switch-points intoa co-indexed English string. In some cases they mayeven replace Haitian Creole equivalents and become fully-fledged borrowings.

Although Cinque (1999, 2004), Ernst (2002), Myers-Scotton (2002), Treffers-Daller (1994) and Yoon (1992)suggest that adverbs include lexical and functionalproperties, the results here only provide evidence oftheir lexical status in Miami Haitian Creole–English.Supporting arguments for such a view were given fromEckardt (1998) and Manninen (2000). This paper is oneof the first to focus exclusively on adverbs in code-switching by means of a quantitative methodology whichcodes both mixed and unmixed tokens bidirectionally andfor their surrounding language-indexation. This methodserves as an additional tool for assessing theoreticalclaims about the nature of the syntactic category ofadverbs. Future work might employ cross-sectional data toanalyze individual differences in adverb code-switching.Collecting naturalistic and experimental data from a largersample of participants may also shed light on some of theissues raised here. Additionally, expanding recruitment toinclude the first and third generations, in addition to the




second generation, will help us understand how differentgroups employ adverbs in code-switching (see Torres,2002). Future work might also employ a variationistapproach like the one used by Mougeon and Beniak(1991) in order to compare differences in Haitian Creole–English code-switching in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, NewYork or Boston, for example. While the Miami HaitianCreole–English corpora provide little evidence for theapplicability of the 4-M Model to adverbs, an expansionof bilingual data might discover evidence that can bebetter accounted for by dividing adverbs into differentmorpheme types. Here I attempt to forge into new territorywith a comprehensive quantitative methodology but it isclear that further work in other language pairs and bymeans of other methodologies is needed in order to gaina better cross-linguistic understanding of adverbs.

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Adverb code-switching among Miami's Haitian Creole–English second generation (2010)

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